May Men Talk About Abortion?
January 6th, 2007 by Stephen
A methodist Christian minister (of a particularly liberal mindset) was talking to me about abortion, and he said, in relation to that debate:
But no male has the right to take that choice away from a woman.
Now I don’t spend all my time talking about the abortion debate, but on those occasions I have debated the issue, this line has almost always been thrown at me in one form or another. Time and again I am told that my views on the debate are of no value because I am the wrong sex. (That is not quite how this minister put it - but he did intend that the debate only be between women, and likened male interference to an assault).
The argument seeks to silence moral debate by saying that men are not fit to consider such moral issues.
That argument is spurious. We each have a right to consider the morality of these issues, and if our society so comes to a consensus that an abortion is morally unjustifiable on (say) the grounds that it is murder, then the choice of the woman will be restrained. But first we must seriously consider the issues in a careful and compassionate manner.
I see no desire in society to take such a choice away in such cases, nor any likelihood of a societal consensus to that effect. But that need not stop members of the society having forthright views on the issue though. It is our duty to encourage that such views be spoken and discussed freely.
I therefore submit that attempts to divide opinion based on the sex of the holder of the opinion are counter productive to the aims of equality and free speech in a liberal democracy.
This minister also said:
And please, I know this is an emotive issue, but can we stop making it even more so by using the term “killing” of abortion?
Absolutely not!
When I write contributions on this debate I am careful to avoid language that I know is perhaps ambigous, and likely to cause offense to those with whom I (mostly) disagree. Thus I try to avoid the term “preborn child” or “unborn child”, and I do not describe abortion as “murder”, nor the “pro choice” movement “anti life” or any such thing. Emotive terms do not help (thus my objection to incorrect terms such as “parasite” used by pro-choice proponents), and I agree that we should avoid terms that tend to frogmarch us to certain conclusions.
Having said this though, I think it is quite wrong to attempt to hide the truth of what is happening in abortion by refusing to use terms that are accurate.
The foetus is a living organism of species homo sapiens sapiens. It has a genetic identity of its own, and is certainly a form of life. Termination of that life is killing. When a woman has a termination, she kills the foetus. The term is quite simply accurate.
Some misunderstand the term “tissue” applied to a foetus so as to say that all that is occuring is a removal of tissue in a similar manner that an appendix may be removed. One can only suppose that these people are deliberately ignoring the fact that the tissue that constitutes a foetus is a genetically distinct but metabolically dependent living organism. The term does apply.
I use terms such as pro-death, but mostly in my own circle of friends and readers. Not usually in actual posts, but sometimes in comments (such as here!). I guess I shouldn’t revert to being like the pro-choicers when they love to call us pro-lifers “Anti-choice”. In my heart, I actually have a lot of sympathy for the woman who feels her “only choice” is to get an abortion. She will pay the price every day for the rest of her life in guilt and regret, and possibly in health issues stemming from the abortion itself. I have a friend who is proof of the emotional/pschological price abortions extract not only on the babies lost but on the mothers who have to live with their choice.
Men definitely have a right to voice their concerns over abortion. Maybe if they hadn’t been so silent years ago, abortions wouldn’t have been made legal? Yes, the mother carries the baby, but Biblically the father has just as much or more responsibility in the child’s welfare. Abortions are making it easier and easier on men to bow out of that responsibility.
In our state a law was recently enacted that says if one person in the front seat is wearing a seat belt but the other one isn’t…you’ll both get ticketed. And the fine isn’t small. Before God, men have the same responsibility to speak out as women against such things as abortion and homosexuality. Especially when prompted by the holy spirit. I’m sure you’d follow those promptings. :O)